Wife of suspect in standoff cites variety of woes

The wife of a man accused of shooting a police officer in the head said she believes a variety of things — stress, depression and a lack of insulin medication — likely contributed to her husband's volatile state Monday morning.

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“He had hit rock bottom, he was in a really depressed mood and he was just losing it,” Wanika McKinney said of Melvin McKinney. “... I really think he just wanted them to shoot him, because he thought that would be better than going to jail.”

Wanika McKinney said that about 10 minutes before shots were fired from the downtown hotel room, wounding the officer and causing a nine-hour standoff, she left to go to work.

She was upset, she said, because the couple had gotten into a shouting match.

“Me being the jealous person I am, that tends to be a common argument,” she said. “So yes, we had fought that morning, but it was nothing that would lead to him wanting to shoot anybody.”

Her husband of two years, Melvin McKinney, 38, remained in Bexar County Jail on Tuesday without bond because of a parole violation.

He's charged with aggravated assault on a public servant for the shooting of Officer Aaron Terrazas, 34, an eight-year veteran of the department.

Terrazas, whose injuries weren't life-threatening, was recovering Tuesday at San Antonio Military Medical Center. Officials said he was in stable condition.

It was about 8 a.m. Monday when Terrazas and another officer went to the Super 8 Motel in the 1600 block of North St Mary's Street for reports of a couple arguing.

According to an arrest warrant affidavit, the officers knocked on the door, identified themselves as police and waited for an answer.

That's when “a gunshot was fired from inside room 126 and the bullet came through the front door of the room toward the officers,” a report states. While they were retreating, “a second shot was fired from the room and the bullet from the shot struck Terrazas in the head.”

A sister of Melvin McKinney was on scene shortly after and told police she had gotten some calls from her brother, saying “he was at the Super 8 Motel and wanted the police to kill him,” the report says.

Wanika McKinney said a dozen family members and nearly two dozen friends showed up at the scene, several of them recording statements that police played for Melvin McKinney over a loud speaker during the standoff negotiations.

After nine hours, and a conversation with his wife during which she coaxed him to surrender, he finally left the hotel room.

Melvin McKinney made a call to his wife from jail Tuesday afternoon.

“He sounded like he had just got done crying, and he's finally realizing everything he's done,” she said. “He's just an emotional wreck. He kept saying, 'I can't believe I did that, I can't believe what was going through my mind.'”